roundtable: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

roundtable: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:00:49 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:00:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9403250906.A5149-0100000@access2.digex.net>

----------------Original Message Posted in Multiple Lists----------------- 
------------------------Republication Authorized-------------------------- 
    
     
                  READ THIS ISSUE OF FINS TO CONSIDER:      
                                                             
                *   The Myth of "Man Alone"
                                          
                *   Autonomous Individuals in Cyberspace - Alone No More  
    
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age       
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE                    
Vol II, Issue No. 7 (117 lines)                              March 28, 1994
 
 
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP": 
Democratic Citizenship in Cyberspace
By Vigdor Schreibman 

	On the frontiers of the American Colonies, out of Lonesome Dove and 
all the other places real and imagined that made up the Western towns and
territories of the United States, the idea of "rugged individualism" and the
metaphor of "Man Alone" was filled with real pathos and meaning.  However,
these ideas of radical individualism, the morality of the marketplace, and
the atomized society they foster, have historically been used by the centers
of corporate wealth in our midst, as formidable instruments of oppression.

	The problem is important to recognize at this time because the emerging
information revolution is expected to exacerbate this lopsided structure of
power, and the real threat to "Man Alone" is not cured by the Bill of Rights.
Far too often the guarantees of speech, assembly and petition, privacy, equal
protection and due process are left unrecognized for the mass citizenry
adversely affected.  For any person without the material means to enforce
their rights, they do not exist.  Moreover, such guarantees remain largely
unenforceable, for all practical purposes, under a judicial system that is
overwhelmed by the burden of pervasive lawlessness by both public and private
organizations.  In case after case with which the writer is personally
familiar (e.g., freedom of information, privacy, and computer security
matters), clearly unlawful and unconstitutional conduct by the Federal
Government itself, continues unabated, plagued both by judicial paralysis,
or arbitrary and capricious judicial conduct.  Similarly, the right to
petition Congress for a redress of grievances is without effect when, year
after year, Congress remains chronically unresponsive to deep public
disapproval of its conduct in allocating public priorities based on tenuous
private pressure rather than meritorious public need. 

	In short, individuals may be active citizens and a part of society, as
their innate nature and the circumstances of our time demands, or resign
themselves as slaves of the powerful organizations that inhabit the earth. 
The thesis that one may stand alone, in an atomized and fragmented state of
nature under such conditions is a distortion of the authentic state of
humanity and a strategy for personal, communal, national and global disaster.

	Now we come to cyberspace, which may be the natural habitat of strong
democracy.  On the electronic frontiers of cyberspace now inhabited by some
twenty-five million global people who are free to talk and plan and make
their individual judgement uninhibited by tribal barriers or corporate
hierarchy, and without prejudice or adverse distinction by race, color,
creed, gender, age, handicap, national jurisdiction, geography or time
itself, we are not alone!

	The work of Jim Warren, is a case in point <jwarren@well.sf.ca.us>. 
Warren led the 1993 citizen effort to make state legislation and statutes in
California freely available online.  His common sense formula, "How Citizens
Can Pursue Practical, Potent, Grassroots Political Action - Net-based,
Computer-aided," will be available on Fins Information Age lib after April
15, 1994.  [Fins-PaN-07].  Another similar case is the work of FINS during
the past 15 months, informing the debate in cyberspace about the threat of
an industry planned "hostile takeover" of the National Research and Education
Network (NREN) Program.  Following a rigged and lopsided competition of ideas
about the merits of proposed legislation both in Congress and in the national
media, which many observers believed would have allowed industry domination
and effective termination of the NREN Program, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed an industry backed bill, the "National Information
Infrastructure Act of 1993" [Rep. Boucher: H.R.1757, July 27, 1993]. 
[Fins-PaN-01].  However, led by FINS, after an extended discussion of the
subject in cyberspace that was free and fair, the U.S. Senate rejected
efforts to privatize the NREN, with passage by a vote of 59 to 40, of the
"National Competitiveness Act of 1994," which contains title VI, the
"Information Technology Applications Research Program" [S.4, H.R.820].  FINS
has confirmed that the Act is now intended to assure continuation without
change of the NREN authorized use policy (AUP), serving the public good
without profit pressures from the marketplace and with freedom to experiment.

	The American mass media attempted to condemn the truth of these matters
to death simply by a "censorship by silence," while the darling of industry,
Mitch Kapor of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was given blanket coverage
to promote their spurious claims about the democratic purposes of the
cyberspace marketplace: in US News & World Report, New York Times, Forbes,
Rolling Stone, the New Republic.  Indeed, Al Gore is now planning another
made-for-TV propaganda blitz, Mar 29, called a "Public Interest Summit" that
the media is expected to showcase without serious scrutiny.  This propaganda 
blitz will make a mockery of the need for meaningful public participation in
planning the democratic future of cyberspace.  Nevertheless, the established
media could soon begin to transform its vision of cyberspace.  Twenty-five
million global people, and the U.S. Congress are now turning to cyberspace
for an expression of strong democratic citizenship on the substance of our
sacred world and the paramount events of the day articulated by autonomous
individuals who are--for the first time in human history--alone no more!  

=========================================================================== 
BECOME A MEMBER OF FINS--COLLABORATE IN PROTECTING THE SPIRIT OF CYBERSPACE 
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Membership rate: $30.00 a year.  United States and International members   
receive 24 issues of Fins News Columns a year; plus networking, or print   
reproduction rights in primary markets; plus Fins Information Age Library. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Federal Information News Syndicate, Vigdor Schreibman, Editor & Publisher, 
18 - 9th Street NE #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042.  Copyright 1994 FINS.  
Internet: fins@access.digex.net. Browse Fins Information Age Lib located at
the University of Maryland by: "All the Gopher Servers in the World"; or if
you have a Gopher client : gopher to inform.umd.edu and go to the directory
Educational_Resources/Computers_and_Society/Fins_Information_Age; or if you
have ftp : ftp to inform.umd.edu cd to inforM/and go to the same directory.
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